Are you the kind of person who likes to hear to a good conspiracy theory?

Some people simply do not like the discomfort that a conspiracy theory creates. But for others, conspiracy theories are intriguing. They like to explore all of the possibilities that a conspiracy theory presents, in the same way that they like to explore puzzles or mystery novels. Sometimes a conspiracy theory is ridiculous and learning about it is a form of entertainment. Or you may find that the theory is credible and it makes you think. It’s interesting to consider the theory, weigh the evidence and come up with a conclusion.

In the 21st century, one event reigns supreme in the catalog of conspiracy theories: the September 11, 2001 attack on the United States. This event is seared into the nation’s consciousness and significantly affected the entire planet. It seems inevitable that people would cry “conspiracy” about any event with this much impact. However, the conspiracy theories around 9/11 have been strong and consistent.

The whole controversy surrounding 9/11 boils down to one simple question:

Did 19 terrorists cause all of the destruction witnessed on 9/11/2001, or did a group of people in the U.S. government conspire to create that destruction for political gain?

The U.S. government has offered the terrorist explanation, and that is the story that many people believe. A large number of people, however, refuse to believe this “official story.” They believe conspiracy theorists when they say that the U.S. government actually masterminded and executed the attack.

We could spend a great deal of time arguing one side or the other. Instead, we’ll focus on the process. Isn’t it fascinating that there can be two credible explanations for such a complex event, and that both explanations can be so diametrically opposed to one another?

How does a conspiracy theory like this get started? What is required to fuel it into a full-fledged public debate? Can the theory ever be proven? What does the possibility of the theory say about our society? In this article we will explore these questions and many others as we look at the events of September 11.

Conspiracy Theory Basics

Image courtesy AmazonOliver Stone‘s 1991 film “JFK” addresses a controversial version of the events surrounding John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

The dictionary defines a conspiracy theory in this way: A theory seeking to explain a disputed case or matter as a plot by a secret group or alliance rather than an individual or isolated act. A conspiracy theorist, therefore, is a person who formulates such a theory.

There is a certain negative undertone to the term “conspiracy theory” in today’s society. Detractors will point out that many conspiracy theories contain certain features that undermine their credibility. In this article, however, we will use the term “conspiracy theory” in its neutral sense. We are using it to mean an alternative explanation for an event, as it is defined in the dictionary.

In modern times there have been a number of “conspiracy theories.” One example is the assassination of John F. Kennedy. After the assassination, the government offered its explanation of the events. A large number of people (at one point, more than half of the adult population in the United States) simply do not believe the government’s explanation. This particular conspiracy theory rose to such a high level in the public consciousness that an entire Hollywood movie was made about it: “JFK”, directed by Oliver Stone and released in 1991.

The Kennedy assassination really started the modern “conspiracy theory” movement. This is an event where the “official” government explanation of the crime was openly ridiculed by a large number of “normal citizens.” Many people believe that the Kennedy assassination was carried out as part of a larger government-centered conspiracy, rather than as a random event arranged by a single gunman.

In the same way, a very large number of people do not believe that “terrorists” carried out the events seen on 9/11. Instead, they believe that the government caused those events.

By all accounts, General Smedley Butler was a national hero. So when he told Congress that a group of businessmen were perilously close to overthrowing the US government, lawmakers took him seriously. Tune in and learn what happened next in this episode.

The trails which arouse the most suspicion are those that remain visiblefor a long time – like those in this photo from a 1957 air show. (Photo: MetaBunk)

The seemingly random appearance of “contrails”, as these lines of condensation are commonly called, is considered by a small but vocal online minority to be evidence of government conspiracy. The clouds are, according to some, in fact “chemtrails” – chemical or biological agents sprayed at high altitude for any number of top secret reasons.

So persistent is the chemtrail theory that US government agencies regularly receive calls from irate citizens demanding an explanation. Pernilla Hagberg, the leader of Sweden’s Green Party, even raised the issue in parliament. The trails which arouse the most suspicion are those that remain visible for a long time, dispersing into cirrus-like cloud formations, or those from multiple aircraft which form a persistent noughts-and-crosses-style grid over a large area.

So what possible reason would the world’s governments have for secretly jettisoning vast quantities of chemicals into the stratosphere?

The conspiracy theory took root in the Nineties, with the publication of a US Air Force research paper about weather modification. The ability to change the weather isn’t mere pie-in-the-sky. Cloud seeding – where particles such as silver oxide are sprayed onto clouds to increase precipitation – is commonly used by drought-prone countries, and was part of the Chinese government’s efforts to reduce pollution ahead of the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Other proponents of the “chemtrails” theory say it is an attempt to control global warming, while some cite far more sinister goals, such as population control and military weapons testing.

Governments and scientific institutions have of course dismissed the theories, and claim those vapour trails which persist for longer than usual, or disperse to cover a wide area, are just normal contrails. The variety of contrails seen in the sky is due to atmospheric conditions and altitude, they say, while grid-like contrails are merely a result of the large number of planes that travel along the same well-worn flight lanes.

With around 390 members, the Trilateral Commission is a fairly small group — so why do they get so much attention from conspiracy theorists? Tune in to learn more about the history of the Trilateral Commission.

Well, that simply could be the result of stress. Or maybe you have some psychological issues. Or maybe someone else really is controlling your mind…

Yes, there really are some people out there that really do believe that their minds are being controlled by someone else, and I’m not just talking about “brain washing” either (which is very real) but actual mind control, in which someone’s mind is being directly controlled by an outside source (as oppose to brain washing, being more of an indirect control of another person’s mind, and can be broken using therapy, or just an individual’s own will power).

While there are multiple things in the world that people who claim to be victims of mind control (Target Individuals or T.I. for short, as they tend to call themselves) claim that certain shadowy groups are using to execute this mind control, the two most common forms are telepathy, and radio waves.

Now the telepathy one is easy to explain: It doesn’t exist.

There have been multiple studies to see whether or not telepathy is real, and all of those studies have shown that, despite being popular for comic books and science fiction novels, it is not real, and that we cannot control other people’s thoughts and actions simply with our own minds.While several governments have actually tried to use people who claimed to telepathic (or train people to become telepathic) for the use of espionage purposes (which includes the US government), most of the time these programs are abandoned simply because these programs produce no results, and become they are a big waste of time and money.

As for the claim that radio waves (in particular, extreme low frequency radio waves) can control a person’s mind, this one also seems very highly unlikely that this would work as well (even if it could be proven to work in the first place).

For one thing, we are constantly being bombarded by radio waves from multiple sources (including natural sources), and they don’t affect us one bit, most especially our minds. Also, all studies into ELF waves have shown that (despite popular belief by T.I.s, and other conspiracy theorists) they do not affect the human minds, otherwise it would be affecting all of us all the time because many things around us give off ELF waves (one of the most common being power lines).

There are a lot of claims on websites that promote the FEMA Camp conspiracy theories and the locations of the alleged interment/concentration/prison camps. From my research into these locations, many of these websites have very common trends to them and the locations that are posted.

Here are some things that I have found to be quite common with these location claims, and the websites that promote them:

• The claims about these alleged FEMA camp locations tend to be all alike, word by word.

Many of these websites “expose” these “locations” appear to do a lot of copying and pasting of these claims from other websites. Many times these claims are exactly the same, including misspellings, and lack of any real research.

• Many websites list completely bogus locations.

While many websites misidentify what a location is, or what’s at a location, some of the locations that are claimed never had what was claimed to be there to being with. A good example of this would be the claim that there is a renovated Japanese interment camp in Josephine County, Oregon. There was never a Japanese interment camp in Josephine County, Oregon, and thus the claim is bogus.

• Many websites that list locations sometimes have little to no information on those locations.

I’ve seen a lot of location claims that have very little, to next to none, to no information about the location what so ever. Even the most detailed of claims often are only have about two to three of sentences worth, and provide no in depth details, or creditable evidence to back up the claim that the location is in fact an interment/concentration/prison camp.

• Any true facts given about a location still fails to prove anything.

Yes, sometimes these websites will actually list facts about a location. The problem is that these facts are often muddled with unproven allegations. Even when they aren’t, they still do not prove that the location is a FEMA camp.

Collect your children and run for cover. Today we’re going to look at the terrifying tale that says a race of tall reptilian beings lives among us, and even runs our government.

The concept of reptilian beings on Earth is a surprisingly widespread conspiracy theory, in which the US government and major public companies are complicit in a vast worldwide network of underground bases housing a large population of humanoid reptilian creatures called Reptoids. They speak English and are involved in every major government and corporate decision. They are variously said to either disguise themselves or actually shape-shift into humans, where they have public lives in positions of national importance. Some say the Reptoids are of extraterrestrial origin, and some say they are native to Earth, having developed intelligence before the primates, and have been secretly running things all along.

I first heard of reptilians when planning a trip to Mt. Shasta as a youth. Shasta is one of our fourteeners here in California. As I discovered, it’s also something of a sacred hotbed for a whole range of New Age traditions. It not only has a lot of Native American spiritual history, it also figures prominently for any number of modern pagan religions. Shasta is said to be full of secret caverns, jewel encrusted tunnels, and whole subterranean civilizations peopled with all sorts of exotic races. Most notably, it’s the home of the Lemurians, an ancient race whose original continent called Mu sank and now make their home inside the mountain, in the great five-level city of Telos. Lemurians, who are tall, white-cloaked beings speaking English but with a British accent, employ invisible four-foot-tall beings called Guardians to protect their city. Bigfoots are also said to populate Shasta. Among all this exotic company, Reptoids would hardly be noticed. The story goes that Reptoids use Mt. Shasta as one of the numerous entrances to their huge underground network of bases.

Reptoids are said to serve at least one very useful purpose: They are sworn enemies of the gray aliens, and may well serve to be humanity’s last line of defense against this threat. Among the gray aliens’ holdings provided them by the US government is a large underground base at Dulce, New Mexico. Some 18,000 grays are said to reside on level 5 of the base, and they perform terrible genetic experiments on humans on levels 6 and 7. Reptilian beings have been caught trying to acquire information about the Dulce base.

The most outspoken proponent of the conspiracy theory that reptilian beings in disguise are actually running our planet is David Icke, whose book “The Biggest Secret” reveals information like this:

Then there are the experiences of Cathy O’Brien, the mind controlled slave of the United States government for more than 25 years… She was sexually abused as a child and as an adult by a stream of famous people named in her book. Among them were the US Presidents, Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton and, most appallingly, George Bush, a major player in the Brotherhood, as my books and others have long exposed. It was Bush, a pedophile and serial killer, who regularly abused and raped Cathy’s daughter, Kelly O’Brien, as a toddler before her mother’s courageous exposure of these staggering events forced the authorities to remove Kelly from the mind control programme known as Project Monarch.

This is a fair sample of most of Icke’s evidence that reptilian beings have taken over our government. Virtually any statement that Icke makes is easily falsified by minimal research if not simple common sense, but since his is a conspiracy theory, any evidence against it is simply regarded as evidence proving the conspiracy. Don’t laugh: Icke sells a lot of these books. A lot of people believe this stuff.

Where did all of these stories come from? The earliest reference I’ve come across is from a Los Angeles Times news story from January 29, 1934 . . .

Here is a video you will really enjoy. This is David Icke telling us all about the shapeshifting reptilian human-alien hybrids. He explains who they are, where they came from and how they came to rule the world (spoiler: they fought and defeated another alien race). Give him some kudos though – he explains all this without cracking even the slightest bit of a smile – nothing – completely straight faced. Unbelievable. I thought about adding a laugh track but it really doesn’t need it, this is hysterical as is.

Towards the end there is a bonus clip! David discusses a “real” incident where somebody shapeshifts from human to reptile then back to human!!!!!

As everyone knows, the 9/11 Truth movement is a loose group of people who believe that the United States government committed the 9/11 attacks.

Now despite the fact that they have never been able to prove that the government committed the 9/11 attacks, they still hold steadfast to the belief that the government did.

It seems to me that most people in that movement have never really sat down and asked themselves some serious, logical questions about the attacks.

Here are eight questions that I feel that people in the 9/11 Truth movement should ask themselves, as well as should be asked by others:

1. If the government did commit the 9/11 attacks, then why would they hit more then one building?

Hitting one building with a plane would have been more then enough for the government to justifiably giving it an excuse to go to war. More then one would be overkill.

2. If the government did commit the 9/11 attacks, then why did it attack the Pentagon for?

The Pentagon is the United States top military headquarters. Hitting it with a plane could have killed our top military leaders and seriously harmed our ability to fight. The government attacking the Pentagon makes no sense both logically and militarily.

3. Assuming that the Twin Towers were brought down in a controlled demolition, then why would they be brought down in the first place?

There would be no reason for the government to bring down the towers. Not only would flying a couple of planes into the towers would have been more then enough to justify going to war, but bringing down the towers would be another example of overkill. Also, it would have been cheaper to repair the towers then it has been to clean up the rubble and build new buildings at the site.

4. Why would WTC 7 have been intentionally brought down?

Wouldn’t intentionally bringing down WTC 7 have been a pointless action? There would have been no reason for the government to ever bring that building down and create a bigger mess. Not to mention many in the 9/11 Truth movement see that building’s collapse as a “smoking gun” for a controlled demolition. If the government did do this, shouldn’t they have had the foresight to see that it might look suspicious to some people?

It has been 11 years since terrorists attacked this country and murdered almost 3,000 people, and almost over night conspiracy theorists began accusing the government of committing this massive attack. These people eventually became known the “9/11 Truth Movement“, or, as they are more commonly called, “Truthers”.

So, what exactly has this 9/11 Truth Movement done?

Well, besides promoting a conspiracy theory that has been completely and totally dis-credited and debunked (even though they try make it appear that their theories are still creditable) all they have really done is nothing at all.

Well… nothing positive at least.

The 9/11 Truth Movement has done nothing but promote ideas that sometimes makes gullible people paranoid, and paranoid people more paranoid.

It has given liars and frauds a chance to exploit these gullible and paranoid people, and basically make money off of them through sales of their books and videos, and people paying to see them and hear them speak.

It has left some people so paranoid that they think that anyone who doesn’t share their beliefs is either a sheep or a dis-information agent. This includes everyone from people over the internet whom they have never met, and conclude that they must be working for the government, or are just stupid, simply because they disagree with them, to close friends and family members whom are concerned about them because their belief in the conspiracy theory is affecting their life. This paranoia can even lead to a person in the Truth movement to isolate themselves from those close to them, or from society in general, because they just don’t feel they can trust anyone that do not believe what they believe.

While I welcome the disclosure, the fact that the US government has now officially stated that they are not hiding evidence of alien contact is not likely to change any minds.

The Obama White House has created a website called We the People in which anyone can write a petition for information from the administration. The current rules state that a petition has to achieve 150 signatures within 30 days to appear on the publicly searchable database, and then must reach 25,000 signatures within 30 days in order to trigger a response from the administration. This second threshold was just increased from 5,000. The two UFO petitions combined garnered 17,000 signatures, but I guess it beat the increase to the higher threshold.

UFO conspiracy theorists have been claiming for years that the US government has been hiding extensive knowledge of contact with aliens. The alleged crashed saucer at Roswell New Mexico is just one famous example. The conspiracy claims include the claim that the government maintains …